Viking Race 2010: What a week !!!!

20 rounds, then 4 additional rounds in a fly off with the 20 best pilots that will stay in my memory forever !

But the result is that I won the Viking Race, I haven't realized yet !!!!
The preparation started 8 months ago when I decided to change all my planes for the season 2010. I kept only my Freestyler (that I didn't use finally), ordered a Dingo and an Alliaj HM, then got a second Alliaj HM after exchanging it with my Martinet F3F.
Then the snowy winter didn't allow me to fly, even a little, F3F. Practice restarted in spring with few contests, VRQ (qualifications), then La Muela FAI open that I won, then the French Championship where I finished second. A had few practice sessions, but I didn't want to over train to not saturate and keep the pleasure to fly.
I knew that the level would be very high, especially from my team mates. From day one, I gave my maximum to realize the best time I could, in each round, whatever the conditions, analyzing the conditions almost real time during the round and ajusting the ballast accordingly, change the turn style depending of the slope, or the wind direction.
The most difficult for me was Laurac Slope B where it is the thermal lottery. I knew that if could affect my score. The objective was to lower the damages on this slope B and try to accumulate good flight on slope A. Then we switch to St Ferriol. Unfortunately the weather was not cooperative and Slope B was not working as usual, with crosswind from the left which give very variable conditions and poor lift. Here too, I had some damages with my second discard round with a 59 against a 45s.
Hopefully, we finished the competition all together on Slope A with very nice rounds. Alexis Marechal was putting lots of pressure on me to bypass me as soon as he could, so I couldn't do any mistake.
I resisted very well to the pressure and even increased my lead over Alexis during the last rounds, then during the Fly off.
Initially, I was not convinced by this fly off, but it was an historical moment when 80% of the times were sub40s, unbelievable. The flying order was the reverse ranking order, so being 1st in the ranking, I was flying at the very end. The stress and pressure was at its maximum. Despite 400 pts above Alexis, I couldn't afford 1 or 2 bad times. Alexis exploded his Alliaj HM in the second fly off round, which destabilized me a little, but I suceeded to reconcentrate very quickly and fly a 37s ... but against a blistering 30.79s ... outchhhhh ... small score :(
I did the last flight of the Viking Race and obtained a good 36s. Now I can destress and release pressure :) ....

It was a difficult week because of the weather sometimes cold and wet, the planning (wake up at 6:30 am and go to bed at 11pm after updating the web site), the stress, etc ... but I'm proud of my result (1st individual and 1st team) but also the result of my team mates.

You can find the picture of the competition day by day here: http://picasaweb.google.fr/vkr2010

All the results are here http://vkr2010.free.fr

Here is a Video Jean-Luc foucher found on youtube. This video has been taken During the Fly off: